


You Are An Original

by masterroadtripper



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Autistic Alexander Hamilton, Fluff, M/M, Married Life, Military Backstory, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-11-28 02:18:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20958824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masterroadtripper/pseuds/masterroadtripper
Summary: Everyone is unique, George knew that for certain.  And no one was more unique than his husband Alex.





	1. Chapter 1

George was sitting at his desk in his office, trying to get as much work done as possible before his husband got home. And that was the thing; George loved Alex with all his heart. All his little quirks and intricacies. Though, when he needed to get work done, he couldn’t do it with Alex at home. Alex wasn’t particularly an attention hog, so to speak. He just really liked being around George and wanted to do stuff with him. Not a bad quality in a partner at all, in George’s opinion. Though, as a professor, sometimes, he had to prioritize work to get it all done in time for his own deadlines. Like marking all the tests sitting in a pile on the desk in front of him.

As he was struggling to make sense of one of his student’s horrid writing, his brain kept wandering back to Alex. The way everything had its place to him, how everything made sense to him in a certain way that no one could really quite make sense of, though George tried his hardest. Alex had tried to explain it to him once - what he was going through inside his head. George couldn’t say that that talk had necessarily helped him understand what his husband was going through every day, but it gave him a little insight.

His parents had told him that he was crazy to marry someone like Alex. And by someone, they didn’t mean a younger man, a Latino or a grad student. But someone with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. That was the last part that they seemed to be unable to understand. They hadn’t spoken in many months, sadly, since after the wedding. Perhaps it was for the best, that was what George always thought.

As much as George loved his job, he couldn’t help but want to bash his head into his desk repeatedly after finishing the marking on his last paper. But thankfully, he was done and now he could spend the rest of his winter break doing nothing school-related. That was when he heard the door to their apartment creak open followed by the heavy footfalls of feet, too tired to be sure of where they were going.

And that would be Alex. George smiled, bundling the testing papers back into their sack and shoving them into his work bag, work bag sliding under the desk to be taken back to the university the next day. Walking out into the kitchen, he saw his husband prying off his shoes and arranging them on the shoe rack, both fitting neatly between the two pieces of red tape.

George had made the shoe rack for them after Alex got angry one too many times about not being able to find his shoes or not having them arranged “properly”. Properly meaning side by side, toe to toe, heels facing the wall. Alex loved the shoe rack and he’d put coloured tape on the bars, indicating which pair of shoes went where. It was a system, Alex liked the system, and heck, George didn’t mind it either.

Alex, well, he looked adorable. Almost like a lost little puppy. His long hair, which had begun the day tied back at the nape of his neck by one of those non-snag-hair-ties, was now mostly falling out of its place. Which was unsurprising to George. Alex had gone to the university to write one of his final exams today, thus the likely reason for his current unkempt appearance. He wondered truly how Alex’s day had been, though there were a lot of obvious clues.

Number one among them being his black headphones - not the ones that play music, but the ones that were simply for the purposes of cancelling out noise - snuggled tight over his ears. Perhaps the train ride home had been more crowded than usual or had been louder than usual. Either way, he seemed to be coping, in his own, Alex-like way.

Number two was a little wet spot on his shirt at just the right height to indicate that his necklace that he always wore had found its way into his mouth at some point. That topic was a losing battle with Alex. The younger man loved sticking non-food-items into his mouth - from his necklace to pens and pencils. George had bought him a necklace specifically mean for him to stick in his mouth and/or chew on. And Alex loved it but refused to wear it in public. George argued that it would be better on his teeth if he didn’t chew on metal on a regular basis, but that didn’t dissuade Alex.

Though, when Alex looked up from the shoe rack and saw George, standing there in one of his old green US ARMY tee-shirts and grey sweatpants, the smile Alex gave him cleared all other thoughts. Through thick and thin, good and bad, the one thing that made George keep getting out of bed every day, made him shake the memories away, was the look on Alex’s face when he saw him. The glint in his eyes, the cracked smile, the tilt of his head.

“George,” Alex whispered, pulling the headphones off his head and rushing forward to bury his face into George’s chest. That was one of the many things that he loved about Alex, the fit of the smaller man against himself.

“Hi honey,” George whispered into Alex’s hair, still smelling like the soap he had washed it with the night before, “how was your exam?”

“Fine,” Alex said, turning his face up towards George, going up on his toes and kissing him. Due to his size, Alex missed George’s mouth and caught his chin instead, so he leaned over and kissed Alex properly.

“Are you hungry?” George asked once they separated.

“Kinda,” Alex muttered shrugging.

That was another thing that it had taken George a little while to wrap his head around. Alex’s reluctance to eat a wide variety of foods. And no, he had no allergies. It was just that Alex found the texture of the majority of common foods too strange to deal with some days. Once that had been explained, they had sat down and made a list of things that Alex would be okay with eating at any given moment, so George knew what to make for him in the case that Alex couldn’t do so for himself.

“Well, how about this, I’ll make you something light and you go get changed, deal?” George offered and got two big puppy dog eyes looking back at him followed by a smile and a slow nod.

Once Alex had scooted off in the direction of their bedroom, George turned to the list on the fridge. He knew that Alex had made himself oatmeal for breakfast that morning, so that wasn’t an option currently. Perhaps a ham and cheese sandwich would do the trick. George had long ago given up on trying to make Alex eat healthy. Once he could go a week where he ate breakfast, lunch and dinner every day - then George might consider working on fixing Alex’s diet.

When they met, over 5 years ago, Alex couldn’t have been more than 110 pounds soaking wet. George was certain that if a strong enough breeze came around, it would have the ability to knock him right over. That was one thing that George was adamant about trying to fix once they started dating. He just wanted Alex to eat consistently. And it was still a battle. But hey, Alex now weighed 136 pounds, so he considered that a success.

“Thanks, George,” Alex whispered, coming back into the kitchen just as George was folding the bread of the sandwich in half. He turned around to see his husband, now swaddled in a Queens College University sweatshirt too big on his frame to have been one of Alex’s.

“Anytime hun,” George said, putting the plate down on the table on the world map place-mat at Alex’s place.

“You know I love you, right?” Alex said, sitting at his spot at the table with one foot tucked under his rear end.

“I love you too,” George said, bending over and planting a kiss on the top of Alex’s head, “why don’t you tell me about your day while you finish your sandwich.”

The one thing that Alex loved and seemed to need was to tell George about things. Anything. Everything. Whatever happened that day. Whatever he learned that day. He had this incessant need to just dump everything that he had stored that day into the open. Which was awesome and George loved it. He encouraged it. He wanted Alex to talk until he was out of things to say until there was nothing left unsaid inside that brain of his.

“I mean, I wrote the exam,” Alex said before shoving another bite of sandwich into his mouth without complaint.

“How about that book you brought with you to school this morning, is it any good?” George asked, trying to encourage Alex to talk about something.

He simply didn’t want to think anymore. He had managed to delay his memories by marking the tests, making a sandwich. Anything. He refused to speak with Dr. Roger anymore, those sessions obviously were not helping one little bit. The nightmares didn’t go away, the thoughts didn’t go away, nothing went away. So he followed Alex’s example. He coped. And it was working. But today was the eleventh anniversary of the beginning of the end of his military career. 8 years of service, gone in seconds, just like the rest of the crew of the Humvee he had been driving.

He was coping. They both were. Together.


	2. Chapter 2

The second he felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake, George forgot about what he was having a nightmare about and was thrown into the present. Opening his eyes, he saw Alex’s dark brown ones staring into his, as if his husband had cantilevered himself over George’s much bigger body.

“Hi George,” Alex whispered into the darkness of their bedroom and he found that simple statement so inadequate considering he had been likely screaming and crying in his sleep just moments earlier. But leave it to Alex to make sure that he didn’t feel embarrassed or uncomfortable by things his brain did to him without consent.

“How long?” George asked, raising himself up onto his elbows and sitting up a little. In the light pollution off Manhattan shining through their window, he could see Alex had shifted back to sit on his legs and feet, one of two necklaces hanging on the outside of his sleeping shirt, hair still in its braid from that evening.

“Only a couple minutes maybe,” Alex reported, taking the necklace that belonged in his mouth and sticking it in there.

“Thanks for waking me up,” George mumbled before pulling on the collar of his sleep shirt and using it to mop his forehead and face dry from sweat and tears. The one thing that George wanted to know, when he was having nightmares, was how long they were lasting. Because he was certain, now that he had stopped going to talk to Dr. Roger, they were getting shorter.

“I don’t like seeing you sad,” Alex muttered after a few more seconds of silence. His husband was worrying his necklace between his teeth and was looking down at his lap. Alex was distressed. George didn’t like seeing Alex upset.

“Come here darling,” George said extending the arm closest to Alex out towards the smaller man. Alex looked worried still but shuffled closer, on his hands and knees, until he was almost nose to nose with George.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Alex whispered, looking straight into George’s eyes, a feat that he would have praised him for under almost any other circumstances. He very rarely looked anyone in the eye, even George. Alex said that it was almost the singularly most uncomfortable thing that he could do in his day, aside from perhaps dealing with extremely loud noises.

“I am fine Alex,” George said slowly and clearly, reaching out and caressing the younger man’s cheek, the palm of his hand running over stubble and the short hairs of Alex’s goatee, “I promise love.”

“Okay,” Alex said before pausing and looking down at George’s offered arm. The scared one. Even in the dark, George knew that Alex knew that he was offering out his scared arm. George rarely did it. He hated seeing the scars, hated knowing that they were there. The fact that he could barely feel Alex’s touch or that he could barely use his arm some days, he didn’t like to be reminded of all those years ago, overseas. But Alex treated him no differently. Treated both sides of his body like they were the same. Equal. He loved George evenly and equally.

“Come lie down Alex,” George said, smiling as Alex leaned into his chest, eyes closing, legs lining up beside George’s bigger ones. As Alex lay on his chest, allowing George to wrap his arms around his torso and gently soothe a hand up and down his back, George felt at peace.

When he had received his honourable discharge almost eleven years ago, he had never thought he would have found a home. A home where he could allow his husband to fall asleep on his chest, not a care in the world. As Alex started to fall into a deeper sleep, George remembered back to the first day he had seen Alex.

George had been one of the teacher assistants in one of Alex’s third-year history classes. American history, George remembered. It was the first day of the class and the prof had called him and the other TA up to the podium to introduce themselves. That was when he saw Alex. A young Latino boy sitting in the fourth row - eye level - with a dark green hat under which George knew now had been hiding chin-length black hair. Hands constantly in motion, knee bouncing under the desk.

George had been assigned to mark the first half of the alphabet, for any assignments handed in. That meant that the first half of the alphabet could also come to him if they had any questions on their assignments.

So into his office walked Alex, holding a twenty-three-page document in his shaking hands, hair falling forward and not making eye contact. A twenty-three-page document for an assignment that had a cut off at fifteen pages, mind you.

George had been confused, at first. How could such a vibrant young man go from so open in class to so closed in a more private situation? It was the anxiety of being in a confined space that had triggered Alex, in that situation, George knew now. The knowledge that he couldn’t move around, yet absolutely had to. Stifling his need to stimulate his brain in a way that most neurotypical people simply couldn’t find pleasure in.

Then he opened his mouth and his words just started falling out in no particular order, as if all his sentences had been put into a jar and had the words shaken around before being handed back to him. He was obviously nervous and had no idea how to channel that energy.

George had offered for the small boy to sit down at one of the desks in his shared office so they could look over his paper. Upon later examination of the event after knowing Alex for such a long time, he probably should have offered for Alex to stay standing. But he didn’t know that back then.

That was when Alex had started bouncing his leg and wringing his hands under the desk. He appeared to be grinding his teeth or clenching his jaw - a motion George now understood to be the need to stick things in his mouth.

Taking the paper from Alex and wheeling behind his desk to the computer that sat there under the guise of pulling up the rubric, he pulled up the young man’s information. He wanted to see if there were any accommodations he had to his name that would explain his behaviour.

_Alexander Hamilton _

_30089750 _

_Major: Political Science, Minor: Economic Theory _

While George found all that information rather fascinating, what he found even more fascinating was his lengthy list of learning codes assigned to his name.

_Code 52 - Moderate Cognitive Disability _

_Code 54 - Learning Disability _

_Code 57 - Communication Disability/Disorder _

_Code 80 - Gifted and Talented _

Which really explained a lot. The extensive list explained almost every single behaviour that George had witnessed since the young man had stumbled into his office.

They had gone over the paper together over the span of forty-five minutes, Alex not once ceasing to move. It was distracting, sure, but all twenty-three pages of the paper were so eloquently written that George found himself not caring about the behaviours he was witnessing.

Then Alex left his office and George found himself unable to stop smiling. He knew it was bad to develop a crush on someone who was technically one of his students, but he just couldn’t help it. Besides, no one had to know that he had a crush on Alex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those codes that are listed for Alex are based on Alberta Education Codes for Learning. Those were the codes I got when I was in school. I realize they likely don't exist in the same form in New York, but hey, this works :)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not entirely sure if this will be a single-oneshot or if I'll add to it.   
My portrayal of autism in this story is based solely on my experiences  
I hope you all liked it anyways


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